Engage with the Author

Act from Choice is the result of Robert Goldmann’s research and experience helping people see themselves and their situations more clearly in order to manage themselves more effectively.

Seeing more clearly means seeing with a clarity that cuts through the biases and filters we’re all subject to. Though we all have this skill, and use it frequently, it’s not a skill we’re aware of or use consciously. With training and practice we can call on it to bring ourselves to a mind-state from which we can more easily make decisions that are more in line with our value-driven intentions and goals.

He says,

“This is not about changing people. It’s about teaching people to be more effective at self-management. Much of our inappropriate behavior and distorted views— resistance, denial, bias and prejudice, shutting down, and lashing out, for example— are habit-driven. Most of these habitual reactions were acquired innocently, in childhood, even before we had language. They are instigated by automatic and rapid reactions the subconscious prescribes to avoid discomfort and fear, even though the reactions often don’t address the underlying cause of the discomfort.

“The objective is to wake-up and choose. Habitual impulses turn into action before we notice we’re in their grip. It takes both self-awareness and willpower to manage them. Self-awareness is the foundation of self-management and emotional intelligence. My goal is to make available simple tools for training self-awareness to interrupt unwanted impulses, and bring us to awareness, able to choose how to react to what we face at that moment, able choose what to do, and be how we mean to be.”